Love
by Kage kioku aji tenshi
Summary: Summary: You really love him, don't you? Maryse and Alec talk.


Summary: You really love him, don't you?

Maryse and Alec talk.

* * *

Alec looked up as his mother entered his office.

"Mom?" Alec asked as she approached Alec nervously.

"Do you have a moment?" Maryse asked.

"Of course, have a seat and let me..." Alec trailed off as he looked over his desk for a clear spot to set the report he had been reviewing.

Maryse chuckled a little, "You seem to have as much space as I had."

"You always had a spot to set Izzy when she wandered in to see you." Alec recalled with a small smile.

"But never a spot for you." Maryse reminded him sadly.

Alec frowned, wondering why she'd bring up one of the many things she did wrong by him during his childhood.

"What did you want, Mom?" Alec asked, curious now about her visit as she squirmed in her seat as he had done many times before when he'd been called into this office as a young Shadowhunter, new to their mission at ten and unsure of his Mother's standards for him.

Izzy never realized it but she had gotten away with so much because Alec had taken the blame during her first few years as a Shadowhunter, Alec had even managed to get her initiation moved back so she had been fourteen before she'd been hunting on the streets alongside him and Jace.

"I just wanted to talk, I... I've given you unreachable standards for so long and you've always met them without complaint." Maryse said softly as she looked at Alec, "I never realized what it would seem like to you."

"And what do you think it was like for me?" Alec asked.

"That you would never be good enough for me." Maryse admitted softly.

"Why?" Alec found himself asking.

"You were born before Valentine disappeared, you played with his son and we were proud, proud to be so close to the man who we thought would fix everything perfectly."

Alec pressed his lips together tightly as he listened to his mother speak about a man who wanted to slaughter entire races because he didn't like how they came to be, the man who wanted his boyfriend dead because he was a Warlock and how proud she had been that he had played with his son, a man who had tried to kill them several times.

"And then I got pregnant with Isabelle and Jocelyn with Clary and she told me that Valentine wanted Izzy to be his son's wife and Clary yours." Mayrse paused, "We were admittedly excited, it would bind our families so tightly, it was everything we dreamed of."

"I remember a garden of burnt flowers." Alec whispered.

"Yes." Maryse said, "You and Christopher had been playing while Jocelyn and I had tea and discussed baby names and playdates and then you started screaming and the flowers and grass around you and Christopher died and you didn't stop crying. Eventually, I took you home and Jocelyn took her little boy away. You didn't speak for almost two years after that and I think the only reason you did start speaking again was because your sister started speaking around that time. But that incident made me afraid and I convinced Robert that we needed to leave, if Christopher could do that to flowers what could he do to our daughter after they were wed?"

"So, you betrayed Valentine because you loved Izzy?" Alec asked, a painful twinge in his heart because it was for Izzy and not him that they'd decided to turn to the Clave, if it weren't for the then unborn Izzy would they still have risked their lives for Valentine's crusade? Risked his life? Raised him to hate and kill Downworlders for no other reason than that they were not Shadowhunters?

Maryse looked Alec in the eye and nodded, "Even then you were so strong and brave, I knew that no matter what you would endure and survive, even if we perished."

Alec drew in a sharp breath and looked away from his mother, he'd known, seen that his parents favored Izzy when they were younger, as their duties had shifted as Izzy and him got older and with the arrival of Jace they had stopped being so affectionate and Izzy thought she'd done something wrong but it was merely that his parents knew she was growing up and had to find her own niche, something Alec would never have been allowed.

Even then at twelve standing in front of his Mother and Father having to explain that he'd failed his mission to bring in a rogue Werewolf he'd know that one day his parents would convince a nice, highstanding family that he'd be a good husband for their daughter and he'd have babies with her and Izzy would be allowed to marry whoever she wanted within reason.

He'd ruined that by kissing Magnus, not that he'd ever regret that, but he'd ruined everything his parents had ever planned with one simple kiss, one tiny thing that he'd done for himself instead of anybody else.

"I'm sorry, Alec." Maryse said quietly.

Alec looked at her.

"Why?" Alec asked.

"For everything I've tried to force on you, for what I tried to force you to be." Maryse told him, "For never loving you like I should have. Like I love Izzy and Max and Jace."

"Why can't you?" Alec asked, "Why can't you love me like you love them?"

"I don't know." Maryse sobbed, "I tried, but you were such a needless baby, you rarely cried and I wanted to be on the frontlines with Valentine and Lucian."

"You loved Luke even then, didn't you?" Alec asked.

His mother looked surprised and Alec rolled his eyes, those two made heart eyes at each other whenever the other walked into the room or in Luke's case if he smelled her perfume on someone; he'd just trail off in the middle of his sentence until he managed to shake himself out of it a minute or two later.

"Yes, I suppose I did, though I knew nothing would come of it, I'd been betrothed to Robert since I was young and I was not brave like you are." Maryse admitted.

And Alec could understand Maryse, he could see how she'd resent him when he'd been proof that she'd never have the man she really loved and he almost pitied her and her cowardice.

"I'm proud of you for that and I'm sorry that I made you chose between your family and your own happiness." Maryse apologized.

Alec stared at her, in all the years he'd reported to her, no matter if she was wrong or not, Maryse Lightwood never apologized, not even to the Clave or for her involvement with the Circle.

"Magnus does make you happy, right?" She asked.

"Yeah." Alec grinned as he remembered Magnus kissing him awake slowly that morning, breakfast and coffee cooling on the bedside table as Alec had drawn him in for a deeper kiss that led to a slow love making as the sun slowly rose in the sky to wake the rest of the world.

Maryse looked at her son, the one she'd never been able to do right by, the one who she had held to a standard that she'd thought he'd fail at reaching but hadn't, though she'd never tell him that he'd surpassed her expectations. She'd made sure he thought he failed her and Robert had compounded it with his sneers at Alec's chosen weapon and the way he'd brush Alec off when the boy had begged for their attentions when he'd been younger, they'd almost rubbed the easy way they'd treated first Izzy and then Jace when the younger boy had come into their lives in his face.

Somehow they'd always manage to praise Jace right when Alec entered and then nitpick at whatever flaw they had seen in Alec.

Looking at her son Maryse was amazed at how her son had turned out, not because of them but dispite them and she was proud.

"Ohhh, Alexander!" A familiar voice sang as the Warlock entered the office.

They all froze for a moment as Alec stood.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had a meeting." Magnus started, "I can wait or come back."

"Actually, Warlock Bane, I was just leaving." Maryse stood as well and walk toward the door.

She turned back to Alec just before she exited the office.

"You really love him, don't you?" She asked, eyes soft and hopeful.

Alec looked from her to Magnus who frowned slightly as Alec's gaze softened and Alec smiled slightly, just a quirk of the lips and Maryse knew, she'd seen that same expression on Jocelyn's face when she was still newly in love with Valentine, Robert had described that expression to her during one of their many heated fights as he screamed that she wore it when she looked at Lucian, she'd seen it on Jace's face when he stared at Clary and on Clary's face when she stared back, and Maryse knew that Alec did love Magnus and she was glad for that, that her son had found something to fight for and love whole heartedly.

"Yeah, yeah, I do." Alec smiled at her and walked over to Magnus and kissed the frown from his lips and Maryse smiled and made her exit, though neither man noticed.

"Maryse." Lucian said as he bumped into her.

Maryse froze, her insides knotted as they always did when she was in Lucian's presence.

"Maryse, are you all right?" Lucian asked.

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry, what were you saying?" Maryse asked, her eyes sparkling as she gazed up at Lucian.

"I was asking if you'd like to go to lunch." Lucian said, smiling at her.

Maryse gasped, "I'd like that."

Lucian offered her his hand, which she took, "I know this great place that serves Italian, that's still your favorite, right?"

Maryse nodded, surprised, "You remember."

Lucian smiled, "Of course."

Maryse smiled back, maybe she hadn't been brave enough to fight for love when she'd been younger but if she had learned anything from her son then it was that love was worth fighting for when it was true.

* * *

Honestly this kind of flew away from me and wasn't about Alec and Magnus' relationship nearly as much as I wanted it to be but what can you do?

This was the original note for me to write about: Maryse and Alec talk about Magnus. But you can tell that it got derailed with Circle backstory.


End file.
